New rugged Dell tablet exposed on FCC

PublishedOctober 21, 2009

An FCC filing by Novatel today revealed a rugged version of Dell’s Latitude XT2 laptop called the Latitude XT2 XFR. Dell currently has a couple of traditional laptops in its rugged XFR line, but this will be the company’s first rugged tablet, as far as I can tell.

As you can see from the picture above, the XT2 XFR has a similar button layout as the XT2, but the device has thick rubber bumpers on its sides, as well as a thicker monitor hinge. It also appears that unlike the XT2, the trackpad of the XT2 XFR will be accessible when the device is in tablet mode.

Novatel’s description of the XT2 XFR calls the device a “Convertable Tablet PC with 850/1900 CDMA/EVDO/GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSPA WWAN Radio” suggesting that the device will have a ton of wireless options.

Although tablets have met with limited success to date, they may be popular in the niche rugged market. Judging from the test report pictures, which seem to show a faucet above the XT2 XFR, this will definitely be a rugged laptop that’s able to handle the elements.

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[...] not the only one producing those limited edition models, limited because of demand, of course. Dell is currently in works with the Latitude XT2 XFR, their first rugged touch tablet. Dell Latitude XT2 [...]